Vehicle Care
Doctors agree that illness is caused through faulty food habits and foolish ways of spending leisure. But they do not seem to know that food is a word that connotes a wider variety of intakes. Every experience that is drawn through any of the senses has an effect on one’s health. We say “food for thought”; whatever we see or hear or smell or touch has an effect on the body, good or bad. The sight of blood makes some people faint; or it may be some bad news that administers a shock. Allergy is produced by unpleasant smells, or when something intrinsically unwelcome is contacted or tasted. A sound mind ensures a sound body ensures a sound mind. The two are interdependent. Health is essential for happiness; happiness, or capacity to be happy whatever may happen, is essential for physical health too.
The food we consume should be tasty, sustaining and pleasant. It should not be too hot or too salty; there must be a balance and an equilibrium maintained. It should not arouse or deaden. Rajasic food enrages the emotions; tamasic food induces sloth and sleep. Satwic food satisfies but does not inflame the passions or sharpen the emotions.
Nature has many mysteries in its makeup. Man is able to unravel only those that are cognizable through his five senses; he does not realize that there is a vast unknown beyond the purview of the five faulty instruments of perception that he has. For example, from every being and thing, constantly, without intermission, millions of minute particles and millions of vibrations are issuing forth. Certain substances like camphor emanate so much of these that a lump disappears in a few days. The bodies of others affect us by their emanations, and we too affect them in the same way. For good or bad, we are interacting in this manner, inescapably. Naturally, the growth of the body is affected, as well as its health and strength, by the contact or company we develop. These emanations are intensified when dirt accumulates, or sewage collects, or drains are choked. Sanitation rules are framed to reduce the possibility of disease spreading from such areas.
Untouchability as a social practice must have had its origin in the realization of this truth. But practices like avoiding contact with demeaning or defiling men or objects later became ritual, a hollow round of negations. Those who are ridiculed for observing such restrictions and taboos are finding it difficult to explain the inner significance of their behaviour. These observances originated from the anxiety to earn length of life and strength of body, so that the seeker might gain the goal. The Gita speaks of “yukthahara viharasya”, habits of feeding and recreation which are controlled and regulated. The gross part of food is discarded as feces, the subtle part is transformed into muscle, blood, etc., and the more subtle of the subtle aspects are transmuted into the mind and its activities. That is why the sages have prescribed certain foods in order to promote the spiritual urges and prevent contrary tendencies.
But nowadays food that damages the spiritual urge is being increasingly favoured! The elementary rules of personal cleanliness are neglected in the name of novelty and neospiritualism. Bathing is given the go-by. Oral hygiene is not cared for. Damaging habits are cultivated and tolerated. The mouth is the gateway of the physical mansion; if the gateway is foul, what can we say of the residence and its inmates? Uncleanliness has become a popular cult; it is necessary to keep away from its votaries, for cleanliness is next to godliness. Unkempt, disheveled, dirty heads and bodies denote unkempt, disheveled intellects and minds.
The body has to be carefully and tenderly fostered. It is a precious gift, a very complicated but well-coordinated machine, given for achieving a laudable task. Its exterior, too, must be clean and full of the charm of goodness. The skin of the fruit of ananda [bliss] is the physical body; the succulent flesh is the muscle, bone, and nerve; the hard, inedible seed is the evil that gets mixed up in life; the juice which the fruit offers, for which the tree was planted and nourished, is the bliss it shares with all. The body will shine if the character is fine; service of man and worship of God will preserve its charm. The Lord will be Watching with a thousand eyes the least activity of man to discover any slight trace of selfless love sweetening it.
In the past, illnesses were cured by the simple remedies that nature herself provided: roots, tubers, fruits, leaves, etc., and rest, change of residence, regulation of diet, sadhana (spiritual disciplines), etc.. But now man lives in an age of tablets and injections. Do not believe that health is retained or maintained through doctors; nor can drugs alone guarantee it. Were that so, the dead should all be alive now. Well, examine whether the doctors themselves follow the advice they offer to others. They are the victims of the very habits which they advise against! They condemn smoking and drinking intoxicants as dangerous to health, but they indulge in both and thereby encourage the very evils they condemn.
This is the type of health advisors that we have! ln every field—spiritual, moral, economic, political, and literary—absence of proper leaders is the root cause of all the distress, anxiety, and fear that torment the world.
You are embodiments of the Divine Atma (the Divinity within). Do not crave for recognition and respect from others; crave rather for winning grace from the Lord. ln the pursuit of that aim, do not be misled by the emergence of obstacles and obstructions.
Excerpted from Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 9
